


December 16, 1991

by aionimica



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Assassination, Brainwashing, Car Accidents, Character Death, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6866191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aionimica/pseuds/aionimica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mind of the Soldat is a private thing. It is a perfect thing. And he remembers them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Activation

* * *

 

It tastes like metal. The pull of cryo sleep starts with needles of ice in his veins, stretching and cracking as they begin to melt. They strip and pull and drag at his senses - is that blood or salt on his tongue? - until he is only aware that he is now awake.

The air is salty. Heaving through the black mask, he tries to catch his breath. IIts thick and hot, drowning in lungs that were lulled to sleep with winter’s breath. Sweat courses across his arm; the other clenches and grates, whirring as it adjusts. He cannot feel the twitch of his fingers, but he can, and its not anything in particular, except that it’s - heavy.

He blinks and takes another deep breath. Colors swarm in his vision: first greys and blacks, then some whites. Greens and blues and yellows soon follow. The rest don’t matter: they all fade away. Alle except red. Red always comes last. Last to come and last to leave.

It’s warm. Though outside of cryo, it is always too warm.  
  
Worlds and words swirl across his vision, as faces that should not exist reach out to him. His breaths come faster and a cold hand helps him to sit. He tries to open his mouth through the mask, but is stopped. He wants to speak, but his voice is still lost in the ice.  
  
“Do not worry comrade. We will ease the transition.”

The words are familiar, and yet not. He shouldn’t understand, but he does, the thick consonants rolling through his mind with familiar ease.  
  
He nods. The shocks replace the ice in his veins and his mouth is alive. His voice is unleashed as they tie him down. His mask is replaced for a cap, cold and reassuring. Anticipation threads him through, tightening until he is a canvas of light.

Then it begins.

It cleans and clarifies as the past and present and future begin to align. It is white hot and blistering cold; the contradictions set him right.     
  
“ _Zhelaniye. Prorzhavevshiy. Pech’_.”

A part of him balks and bucks, twists and strains as each word drives a nail home. It pierces and hardens, pulling out and pushing back the parts that don’t belong.

“ _Rassvet. Semnadtsat’._ ”

There is a face - a friend? - reaching for his hand, straining as snows pull him away.

“ _Dobrokachestvennyy_.”

A vision of red hair and a crooked smile swarms, slicing him with knives and vanishes.

“ _Dyehveht_.”

He blinks. A woman’s voice rings in his ears, calling out for stranger with his face.

“ _Vozvrashcheniye domoy. Odin._ ”

His hands still.

“ _Gruzovoy vagon_.”

James Buchanan Barnes takes a deep breath, relishing the clarity. When he opens his eyes, the lenses fall, shattering on the floor. He is whole.

“ _Soldat_?”  
  
He turns and looks at the man in the red hat. The language flows from his tongue with the ease of a man born into it. Looking back across the shattered mirror of his memories, he supposes that he was.

“ _Gotovy soblyudat’_ ,” he says and the man in the red hat smiles. His metal arm twists his metal hand into a fist. He hears a voice whisper through on an empty wind, but misses the words. Not that it matters. The ice set him free, unleashing him once again. His fingers twitch. Born from the ice, his mission was simple, echoing in every facet of his being: To obey.


	2. Part Two: The Mission

* * *

The air tastes different here. Harsh, caustic, with a tinge of salt from Long Island Sound and the bite of exhaust from the City That Never Sleeps. He inhales it with vigor as it races across his face. **  
**

The roaring machine beneath him stalks in the shadows.Gasoline leaks onto his hand. Together they shatter the silence, guttural and foreign in the quiet respite of the elite.  The air is cold, sharp and painful on his skin. They let him out without a mask and he almost grinned. The sky was dark, the new moon hiding her face from him. Only the stars would be his witness, and the clouds that came across the bay shrouded him from their sight.

He merges onto a road, a white sedan pulling out in front. The motorcycle revs, skirting the edge of the road, closer and closer until he can reach out with a hand and-

He approximates they are going forty-five miles per hour at the time of impact. The telephone pole quakes and creaks, sparks lashing as power lines fail. Death is the most likely outcome: the car hit the pole head on (he never misses).

He turns the bike around, parking it not far away. Its single headlamp provides more than enough light.

His metal arm digs into the trunk, wrenching it open. The car shakes. A single case is nestled in the back. His lip twitches. The lock crushes beneath inhuman fingers, opening to reveal four fluid filled bags. They’ve come a long way since needle injections.

Target in sight.

Shutting the case, he turns back to the motorcycle when the creaking of metal reaches his ears. He turns.

_Der'mo._

In a head-on collision, death is the most likely outcome. Other injuries include, blunt force trauma to the chest and neck, concussion, blurred vision- The endless list whirs in the back of his mind as he stars at the man. Old eyes in a weary, bloodied face stares back, that creases into a frown. White hair is spattered with blood, oozing cuts litter his jaw. Words start to form on the driver’s lips, but they’re unable to speak.

-fractured ribs, punctured lung, bruised trachea-

An urge to cock his head and remember presses on his brain, but what does it matter? He should have died in the car. It’s - Stark. Bleak.

“Help-” the man mumbles. “Wife. Help- my wife…” Pointless to plea.

He almost sighs as he walks forward. Cars are made so well these days. Too well, if he’s being honest. As his hand curls into a fist, he lets his mind wander away.

-nasal fractures, skull fractures, traumatic subdural hemorrhage, hangman’s fracture-

She doesn’t turn as he sets her husband back in his seat and buckles him in. She doesn’t cry when she sees his arm. She doesn’t scream as he walks around to her. When he looks through the broken window, he watches as blood trickles down her nose. She can barely breathe, her eyes watering as her throat closes in around her. His metal hand turns as he encourages nature, helps it along.

-herniation, spinal cord trauma, broken femur, broken vertebrae-

She wouldn’t have lasted until the paramedics arrived anyways. When she slumps against the seat, he lets her eyes close.

He easily clears the scene - a camera is easy target practice - and as he starts the motorcycle for the drop point, he turns and looks back. The wind is cold off the sound, cutting his skin like knives.  It’s almost winter.

It will be bleak this year, he notes. Stark. Bleak. Pointless to plea.


	3. Part Three: The Debrief

* * *

 

After.

There is not much after.

The mission is done. The mission is complete. There is no after for the Soldat, only the beginning of the next.

His hands are still bloody when he gets on the plane. The smell of gasoline and burnt rubber and astringent burn his nose as they begin the taxi to the runway. A handler sits across from him during the flight back, a revolver open in his lap. In the entire ten hours, the man’s hand never leaves the trigger. Not that it would have stopped anything.

“You did well, comrade.” The general stands at his side once they land. Slowly, they are escorted across the city, unmarked vans ushering them through dark streets. When they finally arrive, the general’s hat is red and bright in the rusted, metal room.

The Soldat stands as attendants in white coats dare to step forward, dabbing his skin with antiseptic, swabbing open wounds before darting away. They are mice, daring to provoke a beast.

“Were there any witnesses?”

Flashes of the man and woman, their bodies left strewn across the dashboard come to his mind. He doesn’t even turn to the general when he says, “They were taken care of.”

The general with the red hat nods once, before gesturing and a voice whispers, _No_. A metal seat, harshly and poorly formed sits inside of a glass container. Dangling electrodes swing in a breeze that doesn’t quite reach the rest of them.

A small part of him screams, recoiling and running, desperate to escape. But the rest of him only looks at it with indifference. It’s a chair. It doesn’t matter to him.

Slowly, he sits and attendants carefully approach his side. (There are five of them in white lab coats, furiously determined not to make eye contact as they strap his hands to the side). (The men in black that stood behind them had no qualms about staring, their hands cradling AK-47s).

The restraints bite into his skin as a few more dart in with the antiseptic. The smell of it fills the chamber, forcing his eyes to water. His thumb taps in anticipation, but of what, he’s not entirely sure.

“You have done well, comrade. You have earned your rest,” the general says through the glass tube. The words distort and echo until they are the last thing ringing in his ears. Lank hair falls over his eyes. Distantly, he wishes he could brush it out of the way.

It’s only as the ice of the cryo begins to seep into his veins, the last hold snaps. His heart begins to freeze and he gasps for air. Bucky - _Bucky? Why Bucky? Who’s Bucky?_ \- screams but it only echoes in his ears. Muscles strain and pull against the leather ties, but they don’t give.

He watches as the man with the red hat smiles. The attendants in the white coats look relieved as his joints stiffen. His muscles no longer responded - he fell slack in the restraints. Frost crept along the sides of the glass, crystals formed against his nose.

Salt coats his tongue and his lips form a single word.

~

When the defrost begins, he doesn’t remember what it was.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to all who enjoyed this!! It was a fun project to work on <3

**Author's Note:**

> please forgive me if my russian is incorrect. i had to use an online translator for the phonetic spellings and that could have gone differently. please let me know if there is something to correct!


End file.
